Around the tracks: Asking owners of expensive cars how they afford them

When we’re not creating it ourselves, the CarAdvice team spends a lot of time finding and consuming motoring content from all over the world.

Here’s a handful of the photos, articles, videos or social media posts that most caught our eye last week. Some of them are brand new, others have been online for a while.

Enjoy them – just not too much, okay?

It's been seven years since Bruce Willis last appeared on the big screen as wise-cracking detective John McClane in the Die Hard movie franchise.

Now action fans can say a hearty "Yippee-ki-yay, motherf---er" because Willis has reprised the iconic role – but unfortunately, not for another Die Hard sequel.

No, instead Willis has dusted off the old handgun to promote, of all things, a car battery company.

While it's not a full-length Hollywood feature film, the two-minute clip is entertaining nonetheless – and enough to whet your appetite while we wait for another inevitable Die Hard spin-off.

Also, this tagline deserves an award: "McClane will stop at nothing, to start his car again."

If there was anywhere we'd like to spend a Sunday afternoon, comedian Jay Leno's enviable garage would be high on the list.

The former Tonight Show host is a known car enthusiast and has spent a significant amount of his substantial fortune on a collection of impressive cars.

He documents his finds on his YouTube series Jay Leno's Garage and his most recent episode showcases his 1996 Dodge Viper GTS.

Leno purchased the coupe new roughly 25 years ago and, since then, he said he's had few regrets.

In a shade of royal blue with white racing stripes, the Viper GTS is powered by a 8.0-litre V10 capable of generating 450hp, or roughly 335kW, of power.

Leno gives viewers a tour of the car, while recalling the story of how he came to own it, remembering his visit to the plant in Detroit where it was manufactured (and where the entire assembly line signed it) and dishing some impressive automotive trivia off the top of his head.

Twenty-two minutes well spent.

We'd be lying if said that every time we saw a supercar rolling down a suburban street, we didn't quietly ask ourselves, "Man, how did they pay for that?"

Now, one TikTok user has taken the guesswork out of the equation by straight-up asking expensive car owners how they got so rich.

It makes for uncomfortable yet surprisingly enlightening viewing – especially the Audi R8 owner who seems all too happy to share his exact career trajectory.

Other answers are a little, well, NSFW. Just a warning.

There's a series of three videos, which you can watch here, here and here.

Continuing the theme of people who own expensive cars – there are some who prefer to keep their prized possession wrapped in plastic in a garage, rather than taking it out on the open road.

Not 80-year-old British man John, who is still as chuffed to own his beloved Ferrari F40 as he was the day he bought it.

Watching John lovingly show off his F40 – and seeing the instant smile that crosses his face when he puts his foot down – is the infectious joy we all need.

Hands up if you can claim reading your own car's manual front to back? While it's often not a particularly fascinating experience, it can be an educational one.

However, one group of car owners who might want to reconsider brushing up on the ins and outs of their vehicle are those who own an Audi A3.

Why? Because a recent UK study conducted by Bristol Street Motors reportedly found the A3's 167,699-word manual takes a whopping 11 hours and 45 minutes to read.

That apparently puts it somewhere between Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (11 hours and 50 minutes) and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (10 hours and 56 minutes).

We'd strongly suggest both of those are vastly more entertaining reads.

MORE: Around the tracks articles